A serial shoplifter brandished a needle towards security staff in Cambridge and threatened to ‘infect them with aids’ after being caught making off with £120 of meat from Marks and Spencer.

William Excell, 37, made the threats after the store manager spotted him on CCTV while on the phone to police about the defendant’s previous thefts.

Excell, of Ditton Fields in Cambridge, previously pleaded guilty to six counts of theft and one count of common assault. His case was committed for sentence to Cambridge Crown Court on Tuesday, where Excell was handed 21 months in prison.

Sara Walker, prosecuting, said on September 6 the Marks and Spencer store manager called police to report a number of thefts in the store over the previous few weeks.

She added: “While he was on the phone to officers he was looking at CCTV and saw the defendant leaving the store with items without paying.

“£120 of meat was taken on this occasion; as the defendant was being brought back into the store he grabbed hold of the door.

“He told security guards he would ‘stab them’ and exposed a needle. When a guard grabbed hold of him he said ‘I’m going to infect you with Aids.’”

Police were called and Excell was arrested. He admitted the theft on the same day, as well as a number of previous thefts.

The previous five thefts took place over 13 days and items, including spirits and two Dyson hairdryers, were stolen totalling approximately £1,000.

In police interview, Excell told officers he ‘had to steal in order to survive’ and would sell the stolen items on for a fraction of the retail price they were worth.

He said he had shown the needle to the security guards to scare them in a bid to get away – as he ‘panicked’ when he heard that police were coming.

Excell, who has 87 previous convictions, mainly for theft, claimed he wouldn’t have carried through with his threat.

In committing the offences Excell also admitted he was in breach of an 18 month suspended sentence for burglary, imposed in May last year by the same court.

The burglary took place in Great Shelford last year where Excell was found guilty of stealing items from a house after working as a gardener. He was tracked down by police after a ‘find my iPad’ app traced a stolen iPad to his home address.

Jonathan Masters, mitigating, said the thefts were desperate crimes carried out to fund Excell’s drug habit.

He added: “My client had a respectable job as a head chef at the Baron of Beef in Cambridge, then the Baker’s Arms in Fulbourn.

“Due to stresses in his life he didn’t keep his job. He knows he is going to go to prison and his girlfriend is expecting his first child in June 2017.”

Judge Gareth Hawkesworth rubbished Excell’s claims that he needed to steal in order to survive, saying he had had ample opportunities to get off the drugs and it was ‘too late to start making excuses’.